The Walls Between Us
by Mellovesall
Summary: My submission for the Nine Lives CARYL Summer Survival Series for June 2016 - FIRST KISS. Take an existing Caryl scene and show how it could have easily turned into the moment their lips first met. Set during the episode 5x06, "Consumed" after Noah steals their weapons and Daryl deflects Carol's gunshot.


He could feel her. Her agitation, her frustration and her defensiveness. It was thick in the air around them as they quickly walked through the building after the kid had stolen their weapons.

Carol was talking "at" him with sharp words and threads of resentment; her need to justify what she had done and what she was forced to continue doing.

Resentment that still lingered from the cut of Rick's banishment and the worst of it was...the emptiness that was left after she had "protected" her family at the prison and after its fall, whatever tragedy she had lived through with Mika and Lizzie. The blackness of her decisions, whatever they had been, were eating away at her.

The emotions weren't entirely directed at him, but at where they now found themselves. Where they had come from and where they were physically and mentally going.

Daryl...understood. He always understood her.

He knew she had been dealing with a lot of shit since they had come back together. Since she had saved him. Since she had saved everyone at Terminus.

He had been watching her. Attempting to reach out, to make her feel like she could live alongside them again. Alongside, him. That she could trust them and herself, to be a family again.

His heartfelt overtures of telling her they could start over, hadn't broken through her walls.

He may have created a thousand cracks in them, but they remained. Walls, that were new between them and were reinforced with rebar made of shadows and secrets...and they hurt him. Hell, he didn't want to think about what she would have done if he hadn't found her at the car in the middle of the night.

 _"What are you doing?"_

 _"I don't know,"_

Even after they rushed after the car, with the white cross on its back window, and she had led him to the shelter of regrets in Atlanta, she still held up her walls against him.

He tried his best to show her, not just in words, but in actions that he could be there with and for her. That he could help carry her burdens and she could find some relief...some peace with him. He had cleared "the family" in the shelter and as they stood in silence over the burning bodies, he could feel her slipping away like the smoke had into the sky.

The night before, she had voiced her belief, her lack of hope, that they couldn't save people anymore and that change in Carol...was terrifying.

She was struggling and he wanted to help her. She gave him small, tender smiles and brief moments of where even she believed she could start over, and then…it would disappear.

And that, scared him.

Her voice was getting louder. In the small hallway her words echoed off the white walls. Her agitation was overflowing and spilling out towards him.

So as he heard her pain filled words of, "I can't. That's why I left,"

His own frustration and his fear finally erupted.

He had been trying and trying to reach out to her and here she was; going to give up. If he were to lose her again, he didn't know what he would do. It would destroy him. It would kill him.

His fear, despair and hurt twisted and turned into anger. Red hot as he tried to jimmy the lock off the door. He had already thrown down his shoulder bag and had been pressing his bubbling, growing anger against the doorknob. The stupid thing wouldn't budge.

"I just had to be somewhere else," Carol said pushing against the world. Pushing against herself and him. She rocked back and forth on her feet behind him.

Daryl's skin prickled from the emotions she was releasing. She was trying to tell him she had to leave.

And boom, Daryl couldn't take it anymore. He wouldn't let her leave him. Not this time. Not without a fight. He would fight for her.

"Well, you ain't somewhere else. You're right here. Tryin," he said, his voice full of anger, hurt and love.

"Look, you aren't who you were and neither am I," she mentally shoved back and he moved on her.

He dropped his knife on the ground and her eyes widened in surprise as he turned and stalked towards her; forcing her backwards till her back met the wall.

And Daryl kept coming. She was surrounded on one side by chilled concrete and on the other, gloriously beautiful, hard, angry male.

He was so full of righteous anger that his instincts took over. Thought, sensitivity and deliberateness were long gone.

His body hungered for her as much as his heart did and she wasn't going to leave him. He didn't give her any leeway. No personal space. He crowded her against the wall till their bodies were flush and he laid his hands on her. He touched her.

Her chest heaved up and down under the palm of his hand where it lay around her neck and rested against her jugular. His thumb brushed across the throbbing artery as both their bodies reacted to their closeness. They were both so far gone with their anger and the chemical explosion of their attraction that ghosts of their pasts; Ed, Daryl's family, those who had hurt them...they were vanquished with the heated passion that flared at their bodies' first touch.

"That's right. We ain't who we were. We're more," he growled in response, as he leaned over her. Her nipples, aroused and erect, burrowed into his chest through their shirts and their hips pressed against each other blindly seeking relief. Seeking out what was and what had always been inevitable. Seeking what was...right. Their lips swayed closer, inch by inch, as their lust ignited into soul consuming flames and they reached for each other.

Lips clashed and moans escaped as mouths slid open and tongues mated. They tasted each other going deeper and deeper. Their hunger was finally being fed as hands pushed, grasped and pulled. Need, it took over. It didn't matter that Daryl didn't know what he was doing. It was all baser instinct and long denied, heart-wrenching longing. So much longing.

It was frantic. It was everything and not enough. They burned.

Daryl heard Carol whimper and he eased back. God, did he hurt her? He had lost control. But, her mouth followed after his and her curves melted against him. She felt so damn good. Her leg lifted and greedily slid up along his hip to cradle him closer.

His body became unbelievably harder and he swooped right back in for more and took her lips. Lips that were red and wet from his ravenousness.

What she made him…feel, it was so much better than his dreams.

Lips still touching, they came up for air and in-between ragged, shared breaths their eyes met. Shock, lust, and hope shimmered back at Daryl through the sexiest blue eyes he'd ever known.

"Don't leave me," he whispered with all his heart, as he watched her walls crumble. Watched as they...fuckin' fell.


End file.
